


Cerul și Marea

by strawberry_cider



Series: PinotPurple fics [13]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Introspection, Simon looking after his people, Snippets, avatar original character, canon typical nihilism, coffee shop au but not the way you think, the vast, vast leitner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23481682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberry_cider/pseuds/strawberry_cider
Summary: There is a weird book in a London coffee shop, a girl wonders about her place in the world, and Simon makes an investment.
Series: PinotPurple fics [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040973
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	Cerul și Marea

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to V., @guardianofdragonlore, who first had the idea for this leitner and with whom I had an awesome time brain-storming this au! Love u 💜

There is a weird book in a London coffee shop. It appears to be a picture book, with a picture filling two entire pages at a time. It has no text, no page numbers, no preface, no author, no title, and no publishing details. It has about 20 pages. The cover is solid, plain, light blue with straight silver lines on the spine, and with no title there either.

The pictures depict oceans. They are either photographs or hyper-realistic paintings. The pictures are of crashing, looming, foaming waves, royal blue under a bright clear sky, or of still, perfectly flat and calm surfaces, expanding forever into the horizon. Some are taken from below the surface, looking up at the rays of sunlight breaching through, colouring the water turquoise, becoming darker and darker as one’s eyes travelled to the bottom of the page, deeper and deeper into unknown depths where no light from above reaches.

Reading the book has an... odd effect. The person reading it seems to go into a trance, their eyes go blank as they scan the pictures and they slowly turn the pages. They stay still and their faces expressionless, but their breathing becomes more and more laboured, like something is blocking the way. Their faces start turning blue and they fall down from their seat. A coroner will report they have died of asphyxiation by drowning, despite their coffee sitting cold and untouched by the book fallen from their hands.

The book is there every morning, on one of the tables for someone to read. Nobody moves it the night before, as the staff avoids touching it entirely. If they see an unlucky soul read it, they tear them away from it before they drown, if they manage to see it on time. There are times when nobody touches it for full weeks, and then they spot a customer with bulging eyes and bruised faces, quietly dying in a back booth, unnoticed. The staff has 999 on the ready on at least one phone when the day begins, letting the others know on which table the book is located that time.

*

  
  


Maria began at the coffee shop working five years ago. Like everybody else, she saw the book, found it strange it had no title, and opened it. Before she knew it she sat down on the table and started flipping the pages. She was torn away from it 15 pages in, by her fellow waiters. Maria was disoriented and confused, as though she was woken up from sleep. They asked if she was okay, if she could breathe, Shawn even patted her back to get supposed fluid out. The book lay on the floor of the shop, by Maria's feet, open and unassuming.

Maria was informed about the cursed book. They were going to do it, but she saw it and started reading it before they got around to it. She was old what to do if she sees a customer read it, what to do if it was too late, and she was asked again and again if she felt alright, whether she should go get checked at a hospital to be safe. Maria answered that yes, she was fine. She kept it to herself that she did not feel what the other waiters claimed to have felt when they read the book. She felt fine while reading it. She felt calm.

  
  


*

  
  


Shawn had been working for longer than Maria and was something of a mentor. He told her about the first and only time the current staff attempted to get rid of the book. Another waitress, Lucy, fed up with narrowly saving people from that “stupid thing”, took it upon herself to take the book and throw it into the garbage outside. When she did not return, Phillip, the manager, went into the back alley where the garbage bin was. He found Lucy lying on the ground, eyes wide and hands grasping at her throat. The death was ruled a drowning and the coroner revealed that Lucy's lungs were filled with saltwater. Phillip searched the bin for the book but it was not there. When he walked back in the shop, it was on one of the tables, clean and untouched.

Another waiter, Andrew, tried to destroy it instead. He made a boiling pot of dark coffee and unceremoniously poured it over the book. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. He died on the way to the hospital, where they found out that his lungs had been scalded on the inside, filled with coffee.

The staff didn't try to get rid of it again. They resigned to keeping an eye on it and making sure nobody died because of it. But people slip and mistakes are made no matter how many precautions are taken, not often enough to raise eyebrows but enough to cause Phillip grey hair in his early 40s.

  
  


*

  
  


Maria wanted to read the book again. It puzzled her why she did not feel like drowning, why it did not harm her but it did with everyone else. And she just wanted to look at it again. Phillip was the last the leave at closing and the first at opening, she could be alone with it. She spied it like a hawk, waiting for a chance. She kept close to the people who picked it up, not so much to save them but as to catch a glimpse of the pages, of that endless blue ocean, even just one second of it. Just one, only one.

“Miss Patrock!” Phillip called out.

“Yes?” Maria asked, startled.

“Could you come help Shawn with a lightbulb?”

“I'm...” Maria trailed off, pointing with her eyes at the customer reading the book.

“Olivia will take over. We need you just a moment.” Phillip said, nodding knowingly.

Maria sighed and went into the backroom. She took the new lightbulb from Shawn and climbed up the ladder before he could take hold of it for safety. “Wait! Wait!” He said, but Maria was already changing the lightbulb and handing down the burnt one.

“Jesus, you're fearless!” Shawn laughed as he watched her climb down.

“It's just a ladder!” Maria laughed back.

“Yeah, but still...”

Maria liked Shawn, but he was such a scaredy cat sometimes. It's just a little height off the ground, no big deal.

*

Maria asked Phillip why did he keep working at the coffee shop, why he continued to be its owner. His health was declining before their eyes. Phillip glumly explained that he had no other choice. He was not told about the book when he bought the establishment and he could not sell it to anyone else. The former owner took off. Phillip needed the money the coffee shop made to support his family, to keep his daughter in college and offer his son the chance to do it too. He wanted both of them to graduate and have better possibilities than him, have more options than him, not get stuck like him. Phillip's situation was especially dreadful, with the constant threat of people dying on his premises, but for all they know, there are other books like that out there. Phillip knew they were.

He told Maria about how a few years back, a man named Jurgen Leitner, some sort of collector, offered to buy the book. Phillip warned him about the it, what it does to people, but the price offered was far too tempting to refuse. An assistant of Leitner came to collect it and handed the check to Phillip. Two days later the book was back. Leitner returned as well and discussed with Phillip what to do. Leitner decided to put a plaque with his library anyway, and leave it in the shop, where it seemed to want to be no matter what. They put the plaque on in the backroom and Phillip was allowed to keep the money, enabling him to pay for his son's braces and still have some left.

*

Maria had a dream about water again. It was her favourite one.

She was with her eyes closed and she was falling into a body of water, enveloped from all sides. She had never been able to hold her eyes open under water and she could only imagine how much it would hurt to open them in saltwater. She knew, within the dream, that she was falling into the ocean. She could feel her pyjamas lift and float around her as she slowly sank deeper and deeper, the water becoming colder and colder. It felt so soothing, like a loving hug. She felt weightless. She was holding her breath, but there was no effort to it.

She could feel fish swim around her, curious as to what she was. They came in all shapes and sizes, creating waves and currents as they passed by. In the far away distance she could hear whales, a gentle echo lulling her, making her further relaxed.

The darkness behind her eyelids became darker and darker as she sank further towards the bottoms of the ocean. The fish had weirder shapes and they were reluctant to approach. An anglerfish bumped its lure against her leg and scurried away. Maria waited to feel rock or sand it her foot but it never came. She kept sinking lower and lower into the depths. The whale song was too far to be heard.

There was something there, filling the darkness, larger than the bottom of the ocean, larger than anything she could comprehend. It was moving its hand underneath her, as a human would to catch a particle of dust floating in the air before them.

Her alarm rudely woke her up.

Maria groaned and got ready for another day wasting her youth at a job that would get her nowhere.

*

Simon was a regular client, if he could be called that. He came around every few weeks. Sometimes they would see him for a whole year. He was very easy to recognise, with his jolly personality, centuries younger than his shrivelling body. Maria was surprised he was still alive. And yet he always came around when he was in London.

The staff didn't really know who he was. Shawn speculated he was some eccentric billionaire, living the remainder of his life travelling and having fun. Maria would lie if she said she wasn't jealous. She felt especially jealous when she'd see Simon read the book. He didn't have any trouble reading it either, he read it as if it were his favourite, comfort novel, as if there was nothing lethal about. He caught her staring one day and he gave her a cordial smile.

“Miss Patrock, Mr Fairchild's cake and coffee is ready!” Phillip announced.

“Ah, yes, got it.” Maria said, picking the tray and making her way to him.

Simon cheekily closed the book when she got near.

“Thank you, Maria!” He said, sneaking a tip in her apron.

“You're welcome, Simon!” Maria said.

“How are you today?” He asked, bringing the cup to his lips.

“I'm alright.” She said. “Same as always.”

“Doesn't it get boring after a while?” He asked and laughed softly.

Maria forced out a smile. “Not everyone had it as easy as you, Sir.”

“You can if you want to. You can ask me anytime for some spare change.”

Phillip told Shawn and Maria about how Mr Fairchild tried to take away the book too. That was the first time he came around, shortly after Phillip took over. He took one look at it and offered a price. Of course Phillip accepted. The book was back a week later, the most it had been out of the coffee shop. Phillip felt sick thinking he caused the death of a kind old man, only for Simon to return, completely fine.

“You were right about it being an odd one, but I think that adds to its charm!” He said and proceeded to continue coming over ever now and then.

*

Maria would remember with a bitter smile about the day she arrived by plane to England from her far away Romania, full of hopes and dreams. She always wanted to have her own restaurant, five stars, celebrity clients, invitations to be judge on cooking competitions. She remembered looking out the plane window as they passed the English Channel. She looked up at the horizon, at how the sea stretched towards the ocean, hundreds of miles away. The world was huge! She used to love that fact about that world. So many places, so many people, so many possibilities, so many things she could do!

That fact now made her sad. She couldn't do everything. Even what she could do was severely limited. She understood what Phillip meant when he said he was stuck. She began to wish she didn't know how huge the world was, that she didn't know about all the things she will never do.

It was either struggling at home or struggling over here. No difference. Travelling back would be another expense for nothing. Often times she wondered what she struggled so much for. She was unimportant. Her family back home was doing fine with or without her. The grades she stressed out so much for meant nothing when it came to finding work. The relations she made at home and worried about keeping meant nothing in a country where no one knew her. The new relations would end when they decided they had enough of the coffee shop and finally quit. Everything was just... so pointless. Five years passed in the blink of an eye and before she knew it she was going to be dead and forgotten, as millions of unimportant people before her.

She wished she could read the book again so bad, to feel the calm of her dreams in the waking hours too. She read that drowning victims, before they fell unconscious under water, they suddenly felt very calm, despite the previous panic and the pain in their lungs. Maybe that was what the book was doing. Maybe Maria was just suicidal.

Whatever, she needs to get to work.

*

Phillip got diagnosed with heart problems due to stress. Simon was there that day when he was discussing with Maria and Shawn what to do, glaring at the book in Simon's wrinkled hands. Simon put it down and made his way to Phillip, clicking his cane against the floor.

“Phillip, I've been thinking about this for a while...” He said. “Would you sell the coffee shop to me?”

Phillip looked as though he was going to faint. He thought this was another one of Simon's jokes, but he was quite serious. Phillip burst into tears and hugged Mr Fairchild. The price he paid for the establishment made Maria's jaw drop, it was far more than she'd consider it worth, but she kept that thought to herself.

“It was very nice of you, Sir.” She told him as she handed him his coffee.

“Phillip is a good man. He deserves some extra funds to enjoy himself and his family.” He said. “He doesn't have long with them, after all.” He added as Maria made to walk away. Maria didn't say anything.

*

Simon went _wild_ with the renovations. The book didn't seem to mind it as long as it had tables to sit on. Simon wanted hand-painted murals, hand-painted ceilings, rosewood tables, porcelain cups and plates, marble counters, marble bathrooms, rose bushes, cedar wood, all sorts of imported nonsense. The coffee shop was going to be the bougiest in all of London. Maria and Shawn felt inadequate in the background of it all.

“Maria, dear, could you come here for a moment, please?” Simon asked from the backroom.

Maria winced. “Please don't call me 'dear', Sir.”

“I apologise.” He said, holding some papers and a pen. “Would you tell me how you pronounce your surname?”

“Pătroc, Sir. Maria Pătroc.”

Simon mimicked the sound and did quite a good job, actually. Maria smiled a little.

“English people usually settled 'Patrock', because it easier to pronounce, I guess.” She explained. “It's nice to hear it said properly.”

“Oh, I can only imagine what it must be like to live in a country that's not your own for so long.” Simon smiled back. “It's important to feel like you belong, isn't it?”

“Indeed.”

“I wanted to ask you another thing, Maria. I'll be needing someone to supervise everything and to make sure everything turns out right. As you know, I'm not around too often. In fact, I'll have to get going after the renovation team arrives.”

“It's alright. I would like to do that.”

“How would you like to be the manager?”

Maria's heart skipped a beat. Her eyes opened wide in awe, then narrowed. “What's the catch?” She asked.

“You'll own a shop and the cursed book inside.” Simon laughed. “Otherwise, it should be fine! You'll get to read it to your heart's content.”

*

Simon came back to find the coffee shop rebranded as “Cerul și Marea Cafe”. It was a luxurious place, with high windows and brass decorations. The walls inside had murals of clear skies and oceans stretching infinitely underneath, the only difference between the two being the shade of blue. Simon was welcomed by a pretty woman with blue eyes, one of the staff members he provided for Maria. He was led to a two-person table where the book sat in the middle, next to a vase with some sticks in an abstract design.

He looked around as he waited, refraining from opening the book yet. The ceiling was painted as he requested, a light blue or light grey with bright white clouds masking the sun. The dark wood of the tables, chairs and booth contrasted very nicely. The staff uniform was a crisp white shirt and sleek black pants, both for men and women. Gentle Italian piano played in the background, mixing with the murmur of other patrons and the clinking of cups and glasses.

Maria excitedly came over to Simon's table and sat across from him. From afar it looked like a grandfather visiting their favourite grandchild. Her shirt was light blue, like the ceiling, and she had a name tag proclaiming her the woman in charge of it all.

“I see business is going well!” Simon said, taking another look around.

“Oh, yes!” Maria said. “Everything is perfect!”

“I don't see Shawn anywhere. Is he in the back?”

“Oh, Shawn quit a few months ago, before the opening. It's alright, though.” Maria said, waving it unimportant with her hand. “His loss!” She laughed and Simon laughed back.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: the word "mare" in Romanian can mean both "sea" and "big"  
> Thank you so much for reading!  
> 


End file.
